For A Moment
by InTruth
Summary: Jack reflects in the caves, after Deus Ex Machina. Rating a caution.


_Disclaimer: Nothing "Lost" is mine._

_Summery: Jack in the caves, at the end of Deus Ex Machina._

**Right Then**

There was an almost electric itch in Jack's fingers as he toyed with the lid of the makeshift medicine chest. He breathed slowly, deeply, trying to imitate the calm impassivity of the elusive Doctor that had been engraved into his mind since he was six. But it was no use- even as he forced his features into the thoughtful frown he knew so well, Jack could feel the fiery energy creep up his arms, feel the goosebumps ripple down his back and the hairs on the nape of his neck rise.

There was so much loaded into that sensation that for a moment, Jack was no longer in a damp cave on a forsaken island.

He was fourteen right then, and he was watching Amy Wright recite her report on polar bears. Amy with perfect tawny curls and clear green eyes, who's locker was beneath his. Amy, who he had been staring at for weeks, and who he was just, _just _beginning to consider asking if she'd like to go for ice cream. Amy Wright, who's father would be transferred to Ontario the next week, and who he would never see again.

Right then, Jack was twenty, and sitting at a bar with a blind date. She was a dull girl with a dull major and a dull job, about which Jack was now getting an earful. He nodded and chuckled mindlessly whenever she took a long enough breath, and daydreamed about Maddie. Maddie was his partner in geology lab, and she was hauling Jack through the coarse by the skin of her teeth since Jack couldn't give the price of tea in China about rocks. But he showed up every time, at first because it was a college course and he'd never been able to ditch classes, and then because Maddie was tall and dark and she gripped his wrist so firmly when he was about to combine powders that would reduce the lab to rubble. She was handsome more than she was pretty, and she walked with an impeccable posture that made Jack decide she was a dancer. This was Maddie, who would laugh kindly when Jack stopped clearing his throat enough to ask her out, and say sorry, he was sweet but not really his type. Hey, no hard feelings...

And right then, Jack was twenty-eight. Twenty-eight, and holding the pale, bony hand of the woman who's life he had just saved. Her name was Sarah, he read on her chart, with eyes grainy and bloodshot. He had been in surgery with her for almost half a day, and now he was waiting for her to wake up. Jack didn't know quite why he was there, could scarcely remember shuffling through Recovery in his sweat soaked scrubs to sit by her bed. He visited his patients before they were discharged, if he had the time, but he had never followed them into Recovery while they were still unconscious. He suddenly realized his legs were trembling despite their first rest in hours, trembling from exhaustion and something like an itch that was distantly familiar. Jack sighed slowly, knowing he needed sleep, that he at least ought to change his blood-splattered tunic, but he looked again at Sarah's face and stayed where he was. Her chest rose and fell, silent and steady, as he had prayed it to for what seemed like forever. He could see the bulges of the heavy gauze under the thin vinyl hospital gown, the dotted pattern shifting with every breath. Jack shifted her hand in his, wondering at how smooth and dry her palm was, studying the amber freckles dusting her knuckles. And when, after hours perched motionless on the ruthless metal stool, he felt her fingers grip his in answer, his heart almost froze from the thrill.

Jack started, disoriented from his life-long moment of memory. He gazed back down into the tin chest, forcing himself to concentrate on how many more bottles of aspirin remained, about what they would do when the alcohol ran out. His heart was pounding in answer to his crippling excitement, and he was starting,ever so slightly, to shiver.

And unbidden, Jack was drawn back to one month ago. Sweating in sudden realization of his injury and the unbelievable heat of this terrible paradise, he looked up in dread as he heard the jungle thrash. To see the dazed, terrified woman stumbling aimlessly through the thickets before him. The woman with the long, rippling hair who had sewn the curtains in her living room on a sewing machine. Who's name was Kate, and who had many, many secrets.

Who's footsteps were now behind him, echoing in the vastness of the cave.


End file.
